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Thursday, 14 June 2018

No end in sight for drug war in Colima

La politica es la politica has posted 32 articles - one for each state in Mexico, including Mexico City - in advance of the July 1, 2018, presidential election. For links to all 32 articles, scroll to the bottom of this post.

The state of Colima on the central Pacific
coast of Mexico is one of the smallest in country, and also has the lowest
population, with just over 720,000 people. Historically, it has had one of
Mexico’s highest standards of living and low unemployment. It has also been
safe.

No more. Now Colima is the most violent
state in Mexico. How bad is it? On January 10 of this year the United States
put Colima on a “Level 4” travel alert – the maximum level of violence and the same
as Syria. In 2017, 700 intentional murders were registered, while in 2016 there
were 524 – an increase of 30%.To put this in context
the city of Seattle, which has a population of 750,000, had 18 murders in 2016,
and 27 in 2017.

Colima’s horror show is a direct result the
Mexican government’s war on the drug cartels, which has now lasted 12 years –
through two presidential six year terms – with no end in sight. Colima is
suffering from fallout from the Mexican government’s “kingpin” approach, in
which the security forces and military have relentlessly gone after cartel
leaders. But as each leader is captured, the criminal organizations are destabilized.
The result is internecine fighting, as well as opportunistic attacks from rival
groups.

This is made worse in Colima due to its
geographic location. The state is vulnerable because it is squished between
Jalisco to the north and Michoacán to the south. The Jalisco New Generation
Cartel (CJNG), which began as a client to the more powerful Sinaloa Cartel up
the coast, is now a major power in its own right. The CJNG learned the hard
way, engaging in brutal conflict on behalf of the Sinaloa cartel with the
ultraviolent Los Zetas. Now, thanks also to efforts by the government, Los
Zetas are hobbled, and the CJNG is a powerhouse, fighting it out on the Pacific
coast with their erstwhile allies from Sinaloa.

In Colima, that means ongoing conflict over
the lucrative trade in methamphetamine precursor chemicals coming in from Asia
to ports such Manzanillo in Colima and Lázaro Cárdenas to the south in Michoacán
– the largest seaport in all of Mexico.

As might seem inevitable, Colima is no
stranger to political violence. In 2010 Silverio Cavazos Ceballos, a member of
the PRI who was interim governor of Colima from 2005-2009, was gunned down outside
his home. The man who was believed to have ordered the killing, Gerardo Mendoza
Chávez, was allegedly one of the main smugglers of synthetic drugs into the
United States. He was also an enemy of CJNG leader Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes
in the fight over control of the port of Manzanillo. Mendoza Chávez was
arrested on May 9 of this year. Days later he was murdered while being held in
Puente Grande federal prison outside of Guadalajara.

After the murder of Gerardo Mendoza Chávez,
former Mexican president Felipe Calderón lamented on Twitter that the prisoner
had not been better protected. Calderón also suggested that the motive for the killing
might have been to silence Mendoza Chávez, given that his testimony could implicate
some ex-state governors in corrupt practices and collusion with drug cartels.

In the context of the upcoming election, it
is important to realize that the spike in violence has been going on for three
years, and people understandably want it to end Colima has had the highest
accumulated homicide rate of any state since February, 2016, the same month in
which the present governor, Ignacio Peralta, took office.

Peralta is a member of the Institutional
Revolutionary Party (PRI), which ruled Mexico for most of the 20th
century. The PRI is also the party of Mexico’s unpopular president, Enrique
Peña Nieto. Peralta’s 2015 victory over Senator Jorge Luis Preciado of the
right of center National Action party (PAN) was by a narrow 503-vote margin.
After a challenge, Mexico's highest electoral court annulled the election due
to corruption: outgoing PRI governor Mario Anguiano Moreno had ordered the
state Secretariat of Social Development to help elect Peralta. A new election
was called and Peralta won that one, too.

One interesting ripple on the security
situation is the recent success of Titan Shield, a federal initiative to reduce
crime in hot spots in Mexico. As a result of Titan Shield, which involves the active
participation of the army, this year the city of Colima has seen a decline in
murders of 45%, the port of Manzanillo 24%, and city of Tecomán 13%.

Titan Shield will no doubt be popular in Colima,
but it is not a long term solve. The problem with the militarized approach to
crime control is that it isn’t sustainable, and does little to address the structural
challenges resulting in high levels of delinquency. As has been seen over and
over in Mexico, the army is poorly trained to collect evidence and to respect
human rights. It is good at war, and in that sense it can engage with
heavily-armed criminal groups, but it does nothing to enhance the competency or
honesty of local cops, politicians, and bureaucrats, all of whom are vulnerable
to coercion by cartels, and essential for any long term solution. There is also some pressure on journalists: a reporter from Radiorama Colima was killed in 2017.

In terms of who will capture most of the
vote from the electorate in Colima during the federal election on July 1, it
can be assumed that the PRI’s José Antonio Meade, running as part of the “Todos
por México” (All for Mexico) coalition with the Green Party (PVEM) and New
Alliance (PANAL) party, doesn’t have much support. He’s trailing in the polls nationally,
and though the PRI is well established on the state level in Colima, it is
questionable that the weary people of populace would want more of the same.

Ricardo Anaya for the PAN-PRD coalition
might do well, given that Colima has historically been a more affluent state,
and Anaya’s approach is more business-friendly. He would also likely stand
behind a tough approach to crime prevention.

Given the conservative nature of the electorate,
the people of Colima might be reluctant to support the leading candidate,
left-of-center Manuel López Obrador (known as AMLO). AMLO is the only candidate
who wants to call an end to the militarized approach to the war on drugs. While
that might sound like an idea that would be popular in Colima, the fact is that
those parts of the country with the highest levels of insecurity, desperate for
any solution, often support the deployment of the military. Titan Shield has
been a success, and a candidate like AMLO, with no clear plan other than to
retreat from the conflict, might be cause for more worry than hope.

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